"A Simple Rainforest Story"
by Jim Lani, May 1998

It takes about fifteen minutes to cut down a rainforest giant. It groans, as its towering body rips away from its ancient roots. Slowly, at first, fighting the inertia, it begins to topple, as the laws of physics grab hold and, at 32 feet per second squared, crashes to the ground. In that fleeting moment, this two-hundred-fifty-year-old forest monarch, becomes a log.

Dead is the lofty canopy of leaves and branches that gave shelter and food to hundreds of animals, insects and plants. Gone is the photosynthesis engine, that, day after day, year after year, breathed in the poisons of carbon dioxide and breathed out fresh, clean oxygen. A flower plant, bonded to only this tree for centuries, is crushed, gone forever and, taking with it, the cure for cancer. The thin layer of precious soil, centuries in the making, without the gentle canopy to soften the hammering blows of the storms, would be gone after the next rains. And the forest man cries.

Fifty million times a year, the groans and crashes sound.  Fifty million times a year, the forest man cries. Only, each year, there are fewer and fewer to cry for the trees. But, there are also fewer trees to cry for. Across the oceans, the dead giant is a polished wall panel in this house and gouged and grimy in another. People trample on the giant; we call it hardwood floors. Cutting boards, furniture, picture frames, trims are wrenched out of the giant. A lot of the giant's magnificent body becomes sawdust and something called offcuts. Then, in due time, the giant becomes trash.

When enough forest giants have fallen, then something strange happens to the world's weather. It begins to rain at a time when there should be no rain. And it rains and rains. Rivers flood and mud slides. But, where it is time to rain, none come. It is dry, so dry. After awhile, it is called a drought. Strange things happen in the ocean, too. Currents, the engines of the oceans, become confused. The oceans forget in which direction their currents are supposed to move, during a certain time of the year. Man, strangely, calls this a phenomena and names it El Nino - "the baby".

That black smoke coming out of the backs of automobiles, from smokestacks and man-made forest fires is gases called "carbon emissions". The forest giants eat tons of it during their lifetimes. However, man has created an interesting situation where less is more. There are less giants and more carbon emissions. With so much of these emissions going into the atmosphere, earth's cooling system has become clogged and heat from the earth cannot escape into space. This causes the earth to become warmer than normal. At the top of the world and the bottom of the world, tremendous ice fields called "ice caps" help to cool the earth. But, because the earth has gotten warmer, the ice caps begin to melt. As the melting continues, oceans will rise and towns and cities along the seacoast will sink into the ocean. We are so intelligent because we also have a name for it. We call it "global warming".

- The End -